Because of a technical problem, any submissions before June 4, 2026 were lost; please resubmit (or submit for the first time) at the new URL listed below, https://tinyurl.com/aspiring-free-speech-scholars

Are you a law student, judicial law clerk, lawyer, or beginning academic hoping to publish a journal article on free speech law? Would you like the opportunity to get advice about your draft from leading free speech scholars?

If so, send us your draft by Sunday, August 16, 2026. (This should still be a draft article, not an article that's already published or expected to be published within six months.) We plan to select the submissions that we think are particularly promising, and invite their authors to a workshop where they can present their papers and get helpful feedback on them. The workshop will be Saturday, October 24, 2026 (with dinner the night before) at the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law in Phoenix. We will inform the selected authors by Tuesday, September 8, 2026.

We have funds to pay for transportation and lodging for the selected authors' trips. Eligibility is limited to people who have so far published three or fewer law-related journal articles.

We also plan to officially recognize zero to three of the top articles among those we review. If the authors wish, they can also have their articles reviewed for publication in the Journal of Free Speech Law (http://JournalOfFreeSpeechLaw.org), presumably after they revise the articles in light of the workshop feedback.

If you're interested, please submit your draft at http://tinyurl.com/aspiring-free-speech-scholars (Google logon required). Please single-space, and format the article nicely, so we can more easily read it.

Please do not include your name or law school affiliation in the document or document filename, and please do not include an author's note thanking your advisors and others. Please make your filename be the title of your article (or some recognizable subset of the article title). We want to review the article drafts without knowing the authors' identities.

If you have questions, please check http://tinyurl.com/aspiring-free-speech-faq; if your question isn't answered there, please e-mail volokh@stanford.edu.

Many thanks to the Stanton Foundation for its generous support.

* * *

James Weinstein, Dan Cracchiolo Chair in Constitutional Law and Professor of Law, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University

Eugene Volokh, Thomas M. Siebel Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution (Stanford University), and Gary T. Schwartz Distinguished Professor of Law Emeritus, UCLA School of Law

The post Reminder: Second Annual Aspiring Free Speech Scholars Workshop appeared first on Reason.com.

According to the First Amended Complaint ("FAC"), Plaintiff Syed Ammar Ahmed … is a practicing Muslim of Pakistani descent who served as an adjunct instructor at IRSC from 2019 until his termination on March 1, 2024. IRSC informed Plaintiff that he was being terminated based on a purported "security alert" indicating that he appeared on an "FDLE Homeland Security database" for "terrorist threats." Plaintiff alleges that no such database exists and that the allegation was false. IRSC's Chief of Campus Safety directed Plaintiff to a 2020 article by Joe Kaufman accusing Plaintiff of being an "Islamist," "racist," and "socialist," and referencing Facebook posts Plaintiff made as a minor between 2009 and 2013. Plaintiff alleges that IRSC relied on this article and anti-Muslim stereotypes in terminating him.

Plaintiff further alleges that internal IRSC emails obtained through a Florida Sunshine Act request show that by April 5, 2024, IRSC's Campus Safety office had "cleared" Plaintiff and concluded he posed no threat. According to the FAC, IRSC leadership drafted a reinstatement letter following this clearance but never sent it, and Plaintiff received no communication from IRSC for nearly five months.

Plaintiff alleges that this failure to reinstate him was not inadvertent. Rather, he asserts that Defendant [Timothy] Moore, the Chancellor of the Florida College System, personally intervened to prevent his reinstatement, directing IRSC officials not to send the reinstatement letter and insisting that the termination remain in place despite the internal clearance. Plaintiff further alleges that contemporaneous emails show IRSC administrators understood Moore to be closely monitoring the matter and seeking updates regarding Plaintiff's status.

Plaintiff alleges that a member of the Florida Board of Education brought the 2020 Kaufman article to Moore's attention, encouraged Moore to act on the article, and thereby played a role in initiating and perpetuating the action taken against him. Plaintiff contends that Moore acted on this encouragement and maintained the termination even after IRSC's own safety personnel determined that Plaintiff posed no threat.

Plaintiff was ultimately reinstated on August 28, 2024—within an hour of IRSC receiving Plaintiff's public records request seeking internal communications about his termination, the April 5 clearance, and the withheld reinstatement letter. Plaintiff filed his EEOC charge on February 20, 2025….

The court allowed plaintiff's constitutional claim to go forward:

To state a First Amendment retaliation claim, a public employee must allege: (1) that he engaged in constitutionally protected speech or association; (2) that he suffered an adverse employment action; and (3) that his protected activity was a substantial or motivating factor in that action.

Applying these elements here, Plaintiff alleges that the adverse actions taken against him—including his termination and IRSC's months-long refusal to reinstate him—were motivated by his Muslim religious identity and his perceived political associations, all of which constitute protected association.{Part of Ahmed's First Amendment claim involves alleged protected speech, but for purposes of this motion, it is only necessary to address the alleged protected association.}

He further alleges an adverse employment action in the form of his termination and IRSC's continued maintenance of that termination even after its own campus safety office formally "cleared" him on April 5, 2024. Finally, Plaintiff plausibly alleges causation by asserting that Moore insisted on keeping him terminated after receiving an inflammatory article referencing Plaintiff's Muslim identity, directed IRSC officials not to reinstate him despite the internal clearance, and acted on discriminatory assumptions tied to Plaintiff's religion and perceived political views. These allegations, taken as true, are sufficient at the pleading stage to state a First Amendment retaliation claim.

To state a claim under § 1985(3), a plaintiff must allege: (1) a conspiracy; (2) for the purpose of depriving him of equal protection of the laws; (3) an act in furtherance of the conspiracy; and (4) resulting injury.

Applying these elements here, Plaintiff alleges that Moore and a member of the Florida Board of Education acted jointly to initiate and maintain his termination, including by circulating and relying on an inflammatory article accusing him of being an "Islamist" and urging IRSC to treat him as a security threat despite the absence of any factual basis. Plaintiff further alleges that this coordinated conduct was motivated by discriminatory animus toward Muslims and persons of Pakistani national origin, and that the conspirators took overt acts—such as directing IRSC officials not to reinstate him and withholding a reinstatement letter—to further the discriminatory objective. These allegations, taken as true, plausibly plead a conspiracy, overt acts, and resulting injury….

Lastly, Moore asserts qualified immunity. Qualified immunity protects officials unless the plaintiff alleges a violation of a clearly established constitutional right. At this stage, however, further factual development is necessary to resolve the qualified immunity issue. Moreover, neither Party provides any caselaw that addresses whether Moore was put on notice that his action against Ahmed violated clearly established First Amendment law. It is axiomatic that government officials cannot target individuals based on their religion or perceived associations. And a broad principle with obvious clarity may put a defendant notice….

The court also declined to dismiss Ahmed's Title VII claims, which alleged discrimination based on religion, race, and national origin:

IRSC argues that Ahmed's Title VII claims are untimely because he filed his EEOC charge on February 20, 2025—356 days after his March 1, 2024 termination—placing the charge outside Title VII's 300-day filing period applicable in deferral states such as Florida…. [But] Ahmed alleges that IRSC's Campus Safety office formally "cleared" him on April 5, 2024, which was well within 300 days of his EEOC filing. Yet, IRSC drafted but withheld a reinstatement letter, maintained his terminated status for nearly five months, and reinstated him only on August 28, 2024, within an hour of receiving his public records request.

These allegations, taken as true, plausibly describe not merely the lingering effects of a past decision but a continuing course of discriminatory conduct, including new decisions made after the initial termination that allegedly perpetuated the discrimination…. Because Ahmed alleges discriminatory acts occurring well within 300 days of his EEOC charge, he has plausibly stated a continuing violation, and dismissal on timeliness grounds is inappropriate at this stage.

Chelsea Glover and Samira S. Elhosary (Muslim Legal Fund of America) and Christopher Charles Sharp (Sharp Law Firm, P.A.) represent plaintiff.

The post Muslim College Instructor's First Amendment Retaliation / Title VII Claim Can Go Forward appeared first on Reason.com.

The post He Who "Would Be a Great Lawyer" "Must First Consent to Become a Great Drudge" appeared first on Reason.com.

The October 2025 Term of FantasySCOTUS finally came to a close. On the whole, this term was a one of the most predictable terms I can recall. In the aggregate, our crowd predicted 94.74% of the cases accurately, up from 76.36% of the cases accurately last term.

I am happy to announce that the Chief Justice is Kirill Muzyka. He is a repeat winner from last term. Players receive ten points for each correct prediction of a Justice's vote. We recorded 57 merits cases (DIGs do not count).

Here is the Top 10:

I usually ask the winner several questions to figure out their approach to predicting cases. Kirill's response was so thorough and insightful, that I reproduce it in its entirety:

As a reminder, I am Kirill Muzyka, originally from Russia and still living in London — though no longer as a student, but now trying to find a job. This term, partly because I had more free time, I spent even more of it following the Supreme Court — and occasionally wondering whether I should apply to a U.S. law school. In the meantime, I have also started a small media project in Russian, where I try to make the American political and legal systems more accessible to a Russian-speaking audience.

My approach to predictions remains broadly the same. I start with oral argument, make my first prediction based on what the Justices said there, and only then bring in background considerations such as previous votes or judicial philosophy.I prefer this mathod because many wrong predictions, I think, come from interpreting oral argument through a preexisting narrative. For example, I was puzzled by how many commentators seemed to think there was serious doubt about Justice Barrett's vote in Watson v. RNC. To me, she clearly telegraphed at argument that she was going to side with Mississippi. My guess is that the uncertainty came less from the argument itself than from background assumptions about the case and about her.

The current oral argument format makes this method more useful. Because each Justice now has extended time to ask questions, they usually have enough room to identify the concerns that actually matter to them. Some Justices are more transparent than others. Justice Jackson, for instance, often makes it possible to predict not only her vote, but almost the structure of her eventual opinion, based on her questions — or, really, her monologues. But the broader point is that the format gives close listeners a lot of information.

At the same time, this approach has real limits. Because I still do not usually read the briefs before making predictions, I sometimes miss nuances that are not fully visible from oral argument alone. The Justices may sound hostile to the broadest version of a party's theory, but still vote for that party on narrower grounds. Particular dispositions can also be hard to predict. My biggest mistake this term was Case v. Montana: based on oral argument, I thought the Court would vacate because the wrong standard had been applied, but it instead applied the correct one and affirmed. I had a similar problem in Pung v. Isabella County. It was clear the Justices would reject the petitioner's theory, as they did, but I was much less sure whether they would affirm or vacate. 

There is also the familiar problem that Justices sometimes play devil's advocate. Justice Alito, for example, can be very aggressive toward a side he is usually unsympathetic to — criminal defendants, for instance — even when the case ultimately ends in a unanimous decision that he joins without writing separately. Abouammo and Ellingburg were two such cases this term. The Chief Justice and Justice Kagan also tend to ask hard questions of both sides, which makes them harder to read; that is how I missed their votes in Monsanto and Al Otro Lado, respectively. The Chief also speaks relatively little.

I like to relisten to oral arguments after reading the opinions, to see how the argument translated into the final decision. Sometimes that makes the outcome much clearer in retrospect. But there are still missed predictions I cannot fully explain even afterward. I was almost certain Justice Kavanaugh would vote with the liberals in Saba, and after relistening to the argument I still think that was the most reasonable conclusion to draw from them. I was also very surprised by the unanimous result in Hemani: after the argument, it seemed almost certain to me that Chief Justice Roberts and Justice Alito would vote against Hemani, and quite likely that Justice Kagan would as well. Galette was another case that left me confused. After oral argument, I was certain that the Justices were divided, but the final decision was unanimous, with no separate writings. As I said last year, high-profile cases are often easier to predict, though not always. I was still very surprised by Justice Gorsuch's vote in Barbara and Justice Barrett's vote in Cook, where, based only on oral argument, they seemed inclined to vote the other way.

I am still working through all the final opinions. This year, I am trying to read not only the opinions themselves, but also some of the most relevant precedents. For example, with Slaughter, I also read Myers, Humphrey's Executor, Morrison v. Olson, and Seila Law, trying to understand the issue properly and decide what I actually think about it.

One broader conclusion I have reached from that is that the quality of judicial writing has improved enormously over time. The current Justices' opinions are much easier to read than many older ones. I also appreciate that most of them try to make their reasoning accessible, so that an educated non-specialist can understand what they are saying. As I said last year, I particularly enjoy the writing of Justices Kagan, Gorsuch, and Barrett. For that reason, I was a little sad that Justice Kagan did not write the dissent in Slaughter. With all respect to Justice Sotomayor, Kagan's dissent in Seila Law made a much stronger — and more fun to read — case against the unitary executive. 

More generally, accessible judicial writing is one of the great strengths of the American legal system. Back home in Russia, judicial opinions are often close to unreadable, which makes it difficult for a bystander to follow the reasoning behind decisions (if such a reasoning exists at all). In most SCOTUS cases, by contrast, even if I have a strong view about the question or the outcome, I can usually understand why other Justices took a different path. I also greatly enjoy the Divided Argument podcast, which puts many of these debates in context and gives them useful perspective.

That said, it was disappointing to see so many cases divided along ideological lines. Those are the easiest to predict, but I generally find cases that do not split the Justices in the expected way more interesting, because they reveal more about each Justice's individual approach. When they do not simply vote with "their side," they show their own methods, instincts, and willingness to think outside the usual boxes. In many ideologically divided cases, by contrast, it can feel as though neither side is really questioning its own premises. 

I hope next term brings fewer of those cases. In the meantime, I am looking forward to reading the remaining opinions over the next few weeks — and then, of course, to the start of the next term.

The post Congratulations To Kirill Muzyka, Repeat Chief Justice of FantasySCOTUS for OT 2025 appeared first on Reason.com.

From Friday's decision in Del Biaggio v. Bansen, written by California Court of Appeal Justice Jeremy Goldman, joined by Justice Tracie Brown and Marin County Superior Court Judge Andrew Sweet:

Del Biaggio's opening brief does contain fictitious quotations, and not on tangential points…. In a declaration in support of his opposition to the motion, Floyd [Del Biaggio's lawyer] states that his office "uses generative AI" in a manner "consistent with State Bar guidance," with "protocols requiring human verification of all outputs using primary sources." He attributes the failures here to a "communication error," explaining that he added the quotations at issue during trial recesses in another case, and asked his paralegal to verify them but she understood he had already done so. He writes that he "deeply regret[s] any errors and affirm[s] they were not willful or AI-driven without review." The paralegal writes in her declaration that she verified all sources in a previous draft, but "based on a brief exchange" believed that Floyd had already verified his later additions to the draft.

First, even if the communication error had not occurred, Floyd's protocol would not comply with the State Bar guidance to which he refers. It provides that "a lawyer must review all outputs produced using AI tools for accuracy, including but not limited to analysis and citations to authority before submission to the court." (State Bar of California, Standing Committee on Professional Responsibility and Conduct, "Practical Guidance for the Use of Generative Artificial Intelligence in the Practice of Law" (Practical Guidance), p. 9, italics added.)

We glean from Floyd's declaration that he used generative AI to make additions to the opening brief during trial recesses in another case without ever planning to review personally—or even to have any other lawyer review—the case law he added. Rather, he intended to have his paralegal simply check the citations before filing the brief. This plan would have been inappropriate even if it had not gone awry. (See Noland v. Land of the Free, L.P. (Cal. App. 2025) ["it is a fundamental duty of attorneys to read the legal authorities they cite in appellate briefs or any other court filings to determine that the authorities stand for the propositions for which they are cited"].)

Second, while we accept Floyd's representation that there was no intent to mislead, we find the declarations vague about how precisely the "communication error" arose. Floyd emphasizes that, because he was in trial, he had "limited time for review." But his general unavailability to supervise the brief's finalization made it even less appropriate for him to expect his paralegal to assume responsibility for verifying what he wrote about cases he apparently had not laid eyes on himself.

Moreover, it should have been a red flag to him that the AI-supplied quotations, which articulated the exact proposition he sought to advance (including purportedly from the California Supreme Court 26 years ago), had eluded him when he researched the same issue in the trial court. We reiterate here that "our warning to litigants is not merely an admonition to double-check citations and otherwise fastidiously comply with the Rules [of Court]; it is to be at all times truthful and to be responsible in crafting any written arguments presented in this court."

Third, the State Bar guidance to which Floyd refers also explains that the lawyer's duty of candor requires counsel to "correct any errors or misleading statements made to the court, regardless of whether such outputs were generated with or without real-time human direction." Ultimately Floyd did file a letter identifying and withdrawing the misstatements, but it came only a few days before oral argument and more than three months after he realized, based on the Bansens' motion for sanctions, that the opening brief had been filed without proper verification of the quotations and citations. In his opposition to the sanctions motion, Floyd wrote only that he deeply regretted "any errors." We reject Floyd's contention that these long-uncorrected errors caused no prejudice. Misrepresentations of the case law, however they come about, waste the time of both opposing counsel and the court, imposing on them the burden of correcting them….

We acknowledge that Floyd admitted the unverified use of AI, offered some explanation for how it occurred, and eventually sent a letter identifying and withdrawing the misstatements. But the protocol he described was insufficient not only to prevent the errors but also to satisfy his obligation to review personally the principal legal authority on which his argument relied. Waiting until shortly before oral argument to correct the misstatements was also far from ideal. We find it appropriate under the circumstances to order Floyd to pay a sanction of $1,500 to the court.

While we order Floyd to pay sanctions to the court, we decline to award sanctions to the Bansens. It is true that they first raised the issue by identifying some of the misstatements of authority in the opening brief. But their motion significantly overreaches by characterizing the appeal as frivolous. We borrow a caution previously expressed by the Ninth Circuit: "Allegations of frivolous appeal are not taken lightly by this court." The label is inappropriate here.

As discussed above, Del Biaggio's motion for reconsideration in the trial court was procedurally authorized because the court decided sua sponte that paralegal fees could not be recovered under the Agreement, without giving the parties an opportunity to be heard. His argument in the trial court, which did not include the fictitious quotations that appear in his opening brief on appeal, came after the Bansens themselves had failed to dispute that paralegal fees were within the scope of the Agreement's fee-shifting provision. His argument on appeal is not limited to the false quotations, and we have found it otherwise meritorious. Under these circumstances, we will not order Del Biaggio or Floyd to pay sanctions to the Bansens….

The post AI-Generated Briefing Must Be Cite-Checked by Lawyer, Not Just a Paralegal appeared first on Reason.com.

A group of plaintiffs, employees in the commercial aviation business, personally reject their companies' pandemic-era policies on masks, testing, and vaccination. The district court dismissed the third amended complaint for lack of personal jurisdiction and failure to state a claim, and we affirm.

The claims in this case are remarkably weak, at least as pleaded. We are more candid than usual in this assessment because the plaintiffs' counsel Anthony F. Sabatini has not been candid with us. Sabatini filed multiple briefs replete with fake and hallucinated citations. Even after being warned. "Always a bad idea." Chief Justice John G. Roberts, Jr., 2023 Year-End Report on the Federal Judiciary, at 6 (2023). By outsourcing his legal work to an AI algorithm, Sabatini violated his ethical duties to both his clients and this Court….

Though the filings in this case were substandard in a variety of ways [I excerpt some of the substantive analysis below -EV], we have saved the worst for last. The plaintiffs' counsel Anthony F. Sabatini's filings are riddled with citations to nonexistent, "hallucinated" cases. His opening brief relies on at least eight such cases, including one purportedly decided by this Court.

After the defendants identified this problem, Sabatini acknowledged in his (untimely) proposed reply brief that those citations were "erroneous or unverifiable," and sought to withdraw his reliance on eight listed cases. At this point, things go from bad to worse: the eight cases Sabatini "withdrew" did not match a single one of the eight hallucinated cases in his opening brief. And not only were they not the right cases—all eight were also hallucinated.

We are far from the first court to see lawyers uncritically rely on artificial intelligence software and submit briefs citing nonexistent cases. The typical response when this kind of violation is identified is some version of an apology from the attorney, often with sanctions to follow. It is rare to see the kind of blatant and repeated misconduct that Sabatini has committed in this case.

The first rule of our profession is that a lawyer "shall provide competent representation to a client"—"competent" in the sense that it requires "legal knowledge, skill, thoroughness and preparation." It goes without saying that completely outsourcing one's legal work to artificial intelligence software is not competent. Doing so is a dramatic violation of the client's interests.

But it does not stop there, because lawyers are also officers of the Court. We expect that when lawyers submit briefs, they give us their best view of what the law is, and how that law supports their clients. We read those briefs carefully—not just because they are the product of counsel's time, effort, and skill, but because they help us as we try to reach the right answer. All that is lost if a lawyer decides that it is not worthwhile to do the work to persuade us—if he is willing to sign his name on whatever a machine churns out without so much as checking it for accuracy. We cannot do our job the same way unless lawyers do theirs.

Whatever the merits of artificial intelligence, it is no substitute for actual intelligence. Any "use of AI requires caution and humility." When lawyers rely on AI tools, there is no way to get around the obligation to verify that the software got it right, and that what it got wrong will not end up in court filings.

{AI algorithms are notorious for producing "outputs that echo users' opinions and beliefs, even when those views are incorrect." This tendency presents a particular danger in legal filings, as one of a lawyer's chief duties is to give his clients a clear-eyed view of whether the law says what the client wants it to say.}

By signing his name on briefs filled with hallucinated citations—not once but twice—Sabatini violated his professional obligations, both to his clients and to this Court. If he thinks these claims are not worth the effort, he should either tell his clients they fall short or advise them to hire another lawyer—not file obviously insufficient pleadings and briefs generated by AI tools. In a separate order, this Court, through the Chief Judge, will refer the matter to the Committee on Lawyer Qualifications and Conduct.

Orlando Sentinel (Annie Martin) reports that Sabatini is an elected County Commissioner for Lake County, Florida, and a former state representative:

The 37-year-old has made headlines for years for his controversial and often insulting social media posts and was warned by Republican leaders in Tallahassee to tone down his remarks even before he even attended his first legislative session in 2019.

In the past, he has tweeted a picture of an AR-15 targeted at George Floyd protesters, called for ending gay marriage and, when he ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives four years ago, posted on X, "I'm running for Congress to imprison as many Democrats as possible."

And a few excerpts related to the substance:

Atlas Air is a commercial airline, and Flight Services International hires contractors to staff Atlas Air's flights. During the Covid-19 pandemic, both companies required employees to vaccinate against Covid-19, unless they obtained a religious or medical exemption—in which case, they had to undergo periodic testing and wear a mask on the job.

The plaintiffs say they object on religious grounds to what they perceive as "a dangerous social and medical experiment." They explain that, among other things, their "conscience prohibits them from being inoculated with any experimental foreign substance," and that their religious rights were violated as a result of "the Biden Administration's goal of achieving universal vaccination and to unlawfully acquire [their] personal, genetic information." And in their view, the companies' accommodations for religious objectors to the vaccination requirement were unreasonable: monthly testing imposed "substantial burdens," and masks were "functionally useless" "symbols" that accomplished "nothing more than political advertising." Some plaintiffs say that they "succumbed to the pressure" and took the vaccine; others begrudgingly wore masks and tested. The complaint does not allege that anyone lost their job, but does allege that some plaintiffs were assigned to less desirable, lower-paying flights.

The plaintiffs assert that their employers' Covid-19 protocols led to a hostile work environment under Title VII; a Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act violation; a federal constitutional deprivation; a tortious invasion of privacy; a negligent disclosure of private medical information; and an infliction of emotional distress. The district court dismissed all claims against Flight Services International and some claims against Atlas Air for lack of personal jurisdiction, and the remaining claims against Atlas Air for failure to state a claim….

Exercising personal jurisdiction over Flight Services International in this lawsuit would violate due process because neither general nor specific jurisdiction is available in Florida for this company….

The plaintiffs first allege that Atlas Air created a work environment hostile to their religious beliefs, in violation of Title VII. They say that Atlas Air's "repeated attempts to coerce" them into getting vaccinated constituted "unwelcomed harassment."

To prevail on this claim, "the plaintiff is required to prove that the defendant had a discriminatory intent or motive." But the plaintiffs do not allege any facts indicating that Atlas Air intended to discriminate against their religious beliefs. In fact, the allegations suggest the opposite. Under its policy, Atlas Air exempted from its vaccine requirement employees who professed a sincere religious objection to the Covid-19 vaccine. Instead, they had to wear a mask at work and test once a month.

The plaintiffs now seem to assert that these accommodations are also hostile to their religion. The problem with this argument is that there is nothing to back it up in the pleadings. The plaintiffs do not allege any religious objections to masks or tests—only political and logistical ones. Masks, they say, are "functionally useless" "political symbols" that "serve no other purpose than identifying 'dissident' employees." And the plaintiffs offer no real problem with testing, other than a generalized complaint that it entails "substantial burdens." What those burdens are, and whether they are religious in nature, the plaintiffs do not say. Nor do they allege that employees who received religious exemptions were treated any worse than those who received medical exemptions.

Whatever one makes of the plaintiffs' dislike of masks and tests, they have alleged no facts signaling animosity from Atlas Air toward their religious beliefs. The allegation that Atlas Air harbored a discriminatory motive is not only conclusory, but "wildly implausible." …

The plaintiffs also bring claims under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, alleging that Atlas Air unlawfully required its employees to take medical products authorized for emergency use. But they cannot sue to enforce such claims; only the federal government can bring enforcement actions under that statute….

The plaintiffs also allege several state tort claims. The first is that Atlas Air tortiously invaded their privacy by disclosing private medical information—namely, vaccination status—to company administrators in charge of enforcing Covid-19 protocols. "In Florida, except in cases of physical invasion, the tort of invasion of privacy must be accompanied by publication to the public in general or to a large number of persons." And publicity "requires that a matter be made public, by communicating it to the public at large, or to so many persons that the matter must be regarded as substantially certain to become one of public knowledge." The plaintiffs do not allege sufficient facts on this score….

We also reject the plaintiffs' intentional infliction of emotional distress claims. Those would require showing that Atlas Air intentionally or recklessly caused "severe emotional distress" through "extreme and outrageous conduct." The challenged conduct must "go beyond all possible bounds of decency, and to be regarded as atrocious, and utterly intolerable in a civilized community."

Like many other employers at the time, Atlas Air required certain precautions designed to prevent the spread of Covid-19. But the fact that the plaintiffs disagree with the steps Atlas Air took does not put the airline's actions beyond all possible bounds of decency. The district court correctly dismissed the plaintiffs' intentional infliction of emotional distress claims.

The post Florida Politician (Anthony F. Sabatini) Faulted for AI Hallucinations in Briefs appeared first on Reason.com.

New on the Beyond the Brief podcast: In the 1970s, the Supreme Court upheld requirements that banks report their clients' cash transactions of $70k (adjusting for inflation) or more. Fast forward to today, and the feds are demanding disclosure of transactions of just $200. Yowza! Are there any constitutional limits on financial surveillance?

New on the Short Circuit podcast: Two Sixth Circuit First Amendment cases that go together "like cocaine and waffles." With a special appearance by Captain Justice, Guardian of the Realm and Leader of the Resistance. [link forthcoming]

1. D.C. Circuit: "Heavy is the crime when a government official trades on his office for personal gain." And separately, this "expediter" who facilitated bribes from nightclub owners to a D.C. tax official, and whose sentencing-guideline recommendation more than doubled after he declined a plea deal, didn't pay a "trial penalty." (He'll serve a below-guidelines nine years and change.)
2. After a brief tour through some of the D.C. Circuit's standing case law, gun owners challenging D.C.'s ban on carrying on Metro get standing by virtue of alleging they paid more money by taking alternative forms of transportation. (Your summarist is puzzled why circuit precedent seems to require pleading such ancillary costs when the plaintiffs are the people being directly regulated by a law they say is unconstitutional.)
3. Now-former CEO accused of sexual misconduct sues accuser, who testified to Congress about her experiences and who had won an arbitration against him. Unfortunately for him, not only does the D.C. Circuit reject his defamation and related claims based on the common-law privilege for legislative testimony, all the statements at issue are now also in F.4th.
4. At murder trial, the judge frames the jury's choice as letting a dying loved one die (acquit) or greenlighting their last-chance surgery (convict). Third Circuit (unpublished): That's unconstitutional, but what with the defendant's statement to police ("They shot at me first so I did what I had to do") and the two shots in the victim's back, a proper instruction wouldn't have changed the verdict. Denial of habeas affirmed.
5. Pretrial detainee at the Aiken County, S.C. jail develops a "grapefruit sized" lump on her head and files a series of grievances ("HUGE ABSCESS," "KEEPS GETTING BIGGER," "PLEASE HELP ME") that result in not much action. Eventually, she's hospitalized with a bone infection and severe sepsis, and part of her skull is removed. Fourth Circuit: No QI.
6. Responding to anonymous tip about drug dealing, North Carolina officers bring their patrol vehicles to an abrupt stop in front of suspect's parked car. He could have squeezed out if he drove carefully, but would a reasonable person feel free to do that? District court: Yes. Fourth Circuit (2-1): No.
7. South Carolina public schools stop offering AP African American Studies course in response to legislation prohibiting the teaching of concepts like "an individual, by virtue of his race or sex, is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously." Fourth Circuit: And some of these challengers have standing. Case undismissed!
8. In 1982, during Salvadoran civil war, colonel orders the ambush and murder of four Dutch journalists and their opposition escorts. (He now lives in Virginia.) Can he be sued for money damages under the Torture Victim Protection Act? Fourth Circuit (interlocutorily): Yep. Acts of foreign gov'ts and their officers get sovereign immunity, but extrajudicial killings are not the acts of a sovereign.
9. CBP agent hits woman with his vehicle as he's leaving station. Can she sue the U.S. under the Federal Tort Claims Act? District court: Nope, he was on union business. Fifth Circuit: Reversed. A reasonable jury could find that accepting snacks donated to the union for distribution among CBP agents was to CBP's benefit.
10. In 2001, the Texas legislature provided that certain noncitizen residents of the state can pay in-state tuition at public universities. The feds sue the state, arguing the law is preempted, and six hours later the district court approves a consent judgment. Fifth Circuit (over a dissent): Done and dusted.
11. Last week, we brought you links in service of the big circuit split about whether the feds can detain certain aliens without bond pending their removal hearing. The Fifth Circuit had said yes. Yet this week's Fifth Circuit is… softening? It's now granted habeas to three aliens on procedural due process grounds and concludes that the feds may detain unadmitted aliens without a bond hearing for ninety days but no longer. Concurrence: 90 days is better than nothing, but the hearing should be within 30 days. Dissent (of the respectful yet emphatic variety): Congress had the power to impose mandatory detention, and the relatively brief duration of this detention presents no constitutional defect.
12. The Convention Against Torture provides an avenue of relief to noncitizens facing deportation who can credibly allege that they face persecution or torture upon return. As with all immigration stuff, it's procedurally complicated, with multiple hearings and levels of review happening at the same time. A federal statute consolidates all Article III review for a particular person into a single proceeding. What starts the clock for that deadline? Seventh Circuit (2024): The conclusion of the torture-relief proceedings. SCOTUS (2025): Nay, it's the order of removal even if the other proceedings are pending. A dozen noncitizens to the Seventh Circuit: We're way past that deadline. Gov't: Which means they're hosed. Seventh Circuit (2026, over a dissent): It does not.
13. Indiana state trial judges are mostly all elected, except for three populous counties where two-thirds of the state's black voters live. There, the judges are appointed. Seventh Circuit: This was a tricky case but, after it was argued, the Supreme Court decided Callais and made it an easy one. No evidence of intentional racial discrimination.   
14. Drunk, armed man threatens to kill his ex, her nephew, himself. Elgin, Ill. officer fires non-lethal round at him on porch, breaking his forearm. He retreats into house, comes back out 10 minutes later unarmed, and shouts: "I want to know who's that [expletive] was who shot me because I want to [bust or punch] his … face in." Officers shoot him with non-lethal rounds again. Excessive force? Seventh Circuit: Qualified immunity.
15. Illinois recently banned the AR-15, the nation's bestselling rife, and 30-round magazines, the AR-15's standard magazine. Consistently with the nation's history and tradition of firearm regulation? District court: No. Seventh Circuit (2-1): Yes.
16. Indiana man is involuntarily committed in 2009 and released four months later. In 2022, he buys several guns, telling the dealers he's never been committed. (A glitch apparently waves some of those purchases through.) He's indicted for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(4)'s lifetime gun ban for anyone ever committed to a mental institution. District court: Unconstitutional as applied to someone no longer mentally ill. Seventh Circuit: Perhaps, but has this fellow recovered? The record doesn't say whether he's a threat now or ever was. Vacated and remanded with seven questions the district court is free to put to the parties, now that Rahimi and Hemani have clarified the analysis.
17. Eighth Circuit: Prosecutors are not supposed to frame people for murder by threatening to plant drugs on an eyewitness, who'll lose custody of her kids, so she'll change her story. Claims against Kansas City, Mo. detectives for reckless investigation proceed as well.
18. Following the 2020 election, three Coloradans form an unincorporated association, United States Election Integrity Plan, to investigate what they believed was large-scale election fraud. They recruit canvassers who go door to door, sometimes armed and wearing badges, asking voters who they voted for and whether they had engaged in voter fraud. Voting-rights groups sue. District court holds a three-day bench trial and rules for defendants. Tenth Circuit: Try again.
19. Distressed man walks in and out of traffic, pleads for help, repeatedly pulls away from handcuffs. A Colorado Springs, Colo. paramedic tackles him and chokes him until he stops moving. Then the paramedic puts his full bodyweight down on the man's head and neck for about 45 seconds until an officer gets him cuffed. He dies. Tenth Circuit (unpublished): Qualified immunity. After the cuffs were on, the paramedic let up.
20. Instead of handcuffing him, Oklahoma officers tase distressed, naked man repeatedly—53 times in nine minutes—to keep him on the ground. (They're convicted of murder.) Another officer puts the man in a chokehold. (He resigns in lieu of criminal charges.) Tenth Circuit: Though the sheriff threw away his phone after receiving notice to preserve it, thereby irretrievably destroying text messages relevant to the estate's claims, there's no reason to think it was intentional rather than negligent. Denial of spoliation sanctions affirmed.
21. "We are far from the first court to see lawyers uncritically rely on artificial intelligence software and submit briefs citing nonexistent cases," says the Eleventh Circuit. But boy howdy this one's a doozy.
22. Florida law prohibits university professors from any "training or instruction that espouses, promotes, advances, inculcates, or compels" students at the state's public colleges and universities to believe various "woke" concepts relating to topics like race and sex. University professors challenge the law as a violation of the First Amendment. Eleventh Circuit: Correct. A clear violation of academic freedom. Dissent: Which is a phony-baloney concept judges made up in the 1950s.
23. The Department of Education will only distribute federal financial aid to students enrolled at accredited schools. This annoys the state of Florida, which has had disputes with its regional accrediting agency over gubernatorial influence at state universities. Florida sues the feds, arguing that the accreditation requirement violates the Vesting, Appointments, and Spending Clauses of the Constitution. Eleventh Circuit: Incorrect.
24. Alabama man is convicted for possession of child porn in 2013. Following five years in prison, and while on supervised release, he and his wife have a son in 2021. But because of his conviction, it is illegal for him to live or reside overnight with his son. A constitutional violation? Eleventh Circuit (en banc): Yes. Parents have a fundamental right to reside with their minor children. Dissent: Tough to say that about sex offenders when we used to execute them.
25. It's a "high bar" for a prisoner to allege deliberate indifference under the Eighth Amendment based on a generalized risk of violence in a prison. But that bar is met for the Eleventh Circuit by an Alabama inmate who was personally attacked twice, and who presented evidence that there's at least one assault for every ten inmates every year at the prison and that the guards both let dangerous inmates walk freely around and even return confiscated weapons to them.
26. And in en banc news, the Seventh Circuit is going to have another look at whether the Florida AG's prosecution of the American Academy of Pediatrics is bad-faith retaliation for the organization's advocacy about gender-affirming care. PI dissolved, and the merits to be heard en banc in the first instance.

New case! Leavenworth, Wash. permits all sorts of home businesses so long as they don't create parking issues or otherwise mess with the peace and quiet of residential neighborhoods. Massage therapy, beauty parlors, and barbershops are all A-okay. But, for reasons that make no sense, officials won't allow IJ client Nicole Bulow, a physical therapist whose practice will have pretty much zero impact on her neighbors, to open up shop. Click here to learn more.

The post Short Circuit: An inexhaustive weekly compendium of rulings from the federal courts of appeal appeared first on Reason.com.

On June 1, 2026, Roc Nation filed a motion for sanctions against Defendants Dixon, Blackburn, and T.A. Blackburn LLC …. This Court set a briefing schedule requiring Defendants' opposition to be filed by June 30, 2026. On July 1, 2026, Blackburn filed Defendants' opposition motion. Counsel for Roc Nation filed a motion to strike the filing because it was "untimely, exceeds this Court's word limit, and contains what appear to be AI-hallucinated citations."

On July 7, 2026, Blackburn filed a response to the motion to strike in which he argued that because every case cited to is real and "each was cited for a proposition it actually holds," the allegation of AI hallucinations is inaccurate. Blackburn does not dispute that on seventeen occasions he included language in quotation marks that is not identical to language in the cited cases but states that "[w]here quoted language does not track the source verbatim, it is a paraphrase or compression that faithfully states the court's holding—the ordinary work of legal argument, not the invention of fake law that the 'AI hallucination' cases condemn." In addition to defending the choice to quote language that does not exist in the cases cited, Blackburn accuses Roc Nation of "failing the identical citation audit," and includes a list of forty citations that he alleges are not reflected in the cases verbatim.

In response to Blackburn's filing, counsel for Roc Nation filed a letter informing the Court that Roc Nation did not use AI in "identifying authority for its own motions nor in reviewing the authority cited in Plaintiff's opposition." Regarding the accusation of forty instances of misleading or inaccurate quotations, Roc Nation states "[i]t also appears that some of Plaintiff's accusations are based on hallucinations from the very 'assisted citation-verification tool' Plaintiff claims to have used." For example, Blackburn claims Roc Nation:

Misattributed [a] quotation to a Supreme Court authority. Roc Nation attaches substantive bad-faith language—that a party "filed a frivolous lawsuit, in bad faith, for the purpose of extorting a settlement from the defendants"—to Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indemnity Co., 553 U.S. 639 (2008). The verification tool returned "No matching quote found in Bridge v. Phoenix Bond & Indem. Co., 553 U.S. 639 (2008)." Bridge is a RICO-standing decision; it does not contain the quoted language Roc Nation attributes to it. That is precisely the species of citation error—quoted language that does not appear in the cited authority—that Roc Nation labels "AI hallucination" when it appears in Plaintiff's brief.

However, Roc Nation states:

[H]ad Plaintiff actually read Roc Nation's motion, he would have seen that Roc Nation did not attribute that quotation—or any other—to Bridge. Roc Nation cited Byrne v. Nezhat, 261 F.3d 1075 (11th Cir. 2001) and appropriately added, as a description of subsequent history, that the decision was abrogated on other grounds by Bridge.

In addition to Roc Nation's representations in their letter, the Court verified the quotations and citations in both the motion for sanctions and Motion to Dismiss.

This Court is deeply troubled by (1) Blackburn's use of language in quotation marks that does not exist in the cases he's citing the language for; (2) Blackburn's insistence that his behavior is acceptable because the cases exist even though the quoted language does not; (3) Blackburn's attempt to defend his behavior by lodging unfounded allegations against Roc Nation; and (4) a continued pattern of behavior by Blackburn of making misrepresentations to the Court in memoranda of law after being sanctioned by multiple courts, including this one, for doing so already.

Blackburn in his filing attempts to obfuscate the meaning of a quotation and how to use quotation marks. Therefore, the Court will provide definitions. Merriam-Websters's dictionary defines the verb quote as "to speak or write (a passage) from another usually with credit acknowledgement."  Merriam-Webster defines quotation mark as "one of a pair of punctuation marks " " or ' ' used chiefly to indicate the beginning and the end of a quotation in which the exact phraseology of another or of a text is directly cited." The Bluebook, which provides guidance on how to use quotations from caselaw, gives specific instructions for how to substitute or omit letters or words when quoting language from a case.

Not only does the dictionary define what a quotation is and how quotation marks are used, courts expect lawyers to present accurate quotations and citations in written submissions. "When a party uses quotation marks to delineate statements of legal rules, and those rules are followed by a citation to an existing legal case, the Court treats this as a representation that the cited case contains the language which is in quotation marks." The Court does "not look kindly" on failures to accurately represent cases cited by a party.

Rather than take responsibility for the inaccurate representations in the opposition motion, Blackburn made baseless accusations against counsel for Roc Nation in attempt to deflect attention from himself. This is not the first time Blackburn has made unfounded accusations against opposing counsel in this case. Blackburn was recently sanctioned by this Court for that very behavior when he accused counsel for Cartagena of violating the Protective Order without a modicum of evidence to support the accusation.

Furthermore, this is not the first time a court has stricken filings by Blackburn from the record because he fabricated quotes from case law. On June 25, 2025, a court in the Western District of Pennsylvania stated:

When reviewing Blackburn's briefs, the Court was perplexed to see quotes attributed to the Court's own prior opinion in this case, as well as other case law, that was wholly fabricated.

Jakes v. Youngblood (W.D. Pa. 2025). Because the court viewed Blackburn's conduct as "a clear ethical violation of the highest order," the Court struck Blackburn's motion to dismiss and reply memorandum of law from the record. The court then ordered Blackburn to show cause as to why he did not violate Rule 11.  In Blackburn's memorandum of law in response to the court's order to show cause he stated:

I now understand that paraphrases—particularly those closely tracking the language from cases—must never be enclosed in quotation marks unless they accurately reflect the precise language of the cited source. In this instance, I failed to meet that standard.

The court in Jakes ultimately imposed a monetary sanction against Blackburn for five thousand dollars.

In addition to being sanctioned for the same conduct Blackburn has now exhibited with this Court, he has been warned by multiple other courts against including inaccuracies and AI hallucinations in his briefs. On March 24, 2025, in this District, Judge Oetkin characterized filings by Blackburn as "replete with inaccurate statements of law, conclusory accusations, and inappropriate ad hominem attacks on opposing counsel." On December 15, 2025, in the District of New Jersey, the court sanctioned Blackburn for citing to nonexistent cases created by AI hallucinations and failing to comply with court orders to provide information about the citation to the court.

Blackburn's repeated inclusion of fabricated quotes in his filings demonstrates a pattern of complete disregard for his ethical obligations to make accurate representations to the Court. He has been sanctioned repeatedly for his reliance on AI without verifying the quotations and citations before filing his submissions. Worse still, while he represented to a court last year that he understands words "must never be enclosed in quotation marks unless they accurately reflect the precise language of the cited source," he brazenly minimizes and attempts to justify identical behavior here. When his fabricated quotes were discovered by counsel for Roc Nation in this case, he doubled down and made baseless accusations against opposing counsel. For those reasons and all of the reasons stated above, the motion to strike is GRANTED and the motion for sanctions will be considered unopposed. A separate order on the sanctions will follow.

Additionally, this Court made a referral of Blackburn to the Southern District of New York's Grievance Committee in its last Order on sanctions. Blackburn's citations to fabricated quotations and complete lack of acceptance of responsibility after previously being sanctioned for the same exact behavior is an outrageous breach of his ethical and professional obligations. Accordingly, this behavior will be incorporated in his referral to the Grievance Committee.

For Mr. Blackburn's side of the story, see his July 7 letter.

The post Lawyer Shows "Complete Disregard for His Ethical Obligations to Make Accurate Representations to the Court," Magistrate Judge Says appeared first on Reason.com.